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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22981531">Workplace sexual harassment in Once A Thief</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowscast/pseuds/Shadowscast_meta'>Shadowscast_meta (Shadowscast)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Once a Thief meta [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Once a Thief (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Consent Issues, F/M, Meta, Nonfiction, Sexual Harassment</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2019-06-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2019-06-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-20 04:54:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>746</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22981531</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowscast/pseuds/Shadowscast_meta</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In the context of re-watching the series, I muse about the Director's very problematic treatment of Mac in the workplace.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>The Director/Mac Ramsey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Once a Thief meta [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1651588</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>March Meta Matters Challenge</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Workplace sexual harassment in Once A Thief</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally posted here: <a href="https://shadowscast.dreamwidth.org/110386.html">https://shadowscast.dreamwidth.org/110386.html</a></p>
<p>Uploaded to AO3 on 2020-03-01.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Okay, so here's a thing that I'm really noticing on my current series rewatch, which I can't remember pinging me so much on previous viewings: the Director's continual sexual harassment of Mac.  Just ... wow.</p>
<p>It's happening from his first day on the job, when she gets him to take off all his clothes so that she can stare at him and intimidate him.  (Seriously.  This is in the pilot.)  Lots of little touches and comments in the briefing room.  One day she playfully nibbles his ear.  <em>Nibbles his ear</em>.  Just incidentally, in the middle of explaining what the mission is.  She brings him to a kinky sex club, of which she is a founding member (totally legit, they're working, Vic is there too!), and in the middle of discussing their plan of action, she suddenly grabs Mac's hand, puts it on her breast, and asks him to appreciate the stitching of her hand-made leather bustier.  (So hot.  So wrong.  Oh, show.)  And then there's the time that she expresses her displeasure with Mac's performance at work by entering his apartment in the middle of the night (I would say "breaking in" but the Agency owns his apartment so she probably has a key and feels entitled), going into his bedroom where he's sleeping, crawling into his bed wearing nothing but lingerie under a trench coat, and having a conversation about his work while running her fingers slowly up and down his naked belly.  Can I just say, I would be very disturbed if my boss did that to me?  Oh, this show.</p>
<p>I think I'm noticing it more this time around for two main reasons.  Firstly, we as a society have been having a lot of long-overdue discussions about workplace sexual harassment in recent years.  Just two years ago, my own workplace developed a government-mandated 40-page policy on the prevention of sexual violence, which I and all of my colleagues were invited to read carefully and give feedback on before it went into force (and I did).  Secondly, I'm older now.  (It happens!)  I'm now closer in age to the Director than to the agents—and I now have the experience of <em>being</em> in a position of authority in my workplace.  I think that when I watched the show for the first time, in my early twenties, I saw the Director almost as a capricious force of nature.  Now I'm in a position to identify with her in some ways, and therefore I'm more inclined see her as a person who makes choices, and who has responsibilities towards her employees.</p>
<p>I don't think that the show ever meant to portray the Director's behaviour as <em>un</em>problematical.  Remember her context; the Agency as a whole is definitely depicted as highly problematical.  They <em>mostly</em> seem to be dedicated to saving the day and protecting the public, but then we have, for instance, the episode where we find out about the non-consensual chemical mind-control experiments (which for her part the Director claimed to oppose on practical, rather than ethical, grounds), and assassins are deployed against innocent citizens who know too much.  (Man, "Wang Dang Doodle" is a <em>dark</em> episode.  Goofy, but dark.  This show is tonally weird.)</p>
<p>I think that the dynamic between Mac and the Director was meant to be read as sexy and subversive (and a little funny), as well as unbalancing and threatening.  I think that if their genders had been reversed, it would have read as super-duper creepy and inappropriate even in 1997, and it wouldn't have been written that way.</p>
<p>I think that the fact that Mac clearly <em>is</em> turned on by the Director was meant to cue the audience that the Director's behaviour was not really abusive.  I think that the conversation on consent has come a long way in the twenty-plus intervening years, so that <em>nowadays</em> the fact that the Director wields the power of life and death over Mac (and throws it in his face frequently) would clearly put them in a position where consent is impossible.  And actually, anyway, he <em>doesn't</em> consent.  Whenever she physically invades his space, he seems to try to retreat about three inches below the surface of his own skin.  (Credit to my friend Shoshanna for the wording of that particular insight.)</p>
<p>So hey, if you're interested in watching a <em>fanvid</em> about the Director/Mac pairing, let me recommend <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/390169">Mean Woman Blues</a> by Jetpack Monkey.  Glory in the highly problematic hotness.  (They're fictional characters; it's <em>okay</em>.)</p>
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